Infant mental health network groups: evaluation of an interdisciplinary model for integrating infant mental health principles into everyday clinical practice and service in the community

摘要

Infant Mental Health (IMH) is an interdisciplinary field and embraces the importance ofudpromoting positive mental health development within a relational framework with the child’sudcaregiver(s). IMH practice is best understood along a continuum which includes promotion,udprevention, intervention and treatment integrated across services and disciplines. IMHudprinciples incorporate developmental, clinical and preventative perspectives that inform theudpractice of service providers of different disciplines whose original training may haveudemphasised a different knowledge base and different skills. Some lack knowledge about infantuddevelopment and behaviour in the early years, but have a strong clinical understanding. Othersudare well prepared to meet the developmental needs of very young children but may be new toudinfant mental health principles and practices. For most, working within a relational frameworkudis new and requires specialised education and training relevant to each individual discipline but,udmore importantly, also on how best to integrate IMH principles across disciplines and services.udThe work in this document discusses the implementation of this training and an analysis of itsudbenefits in the HSE North Cork Child & Family Psychology Service (NC-CFPS) and CommunityudWork Department (CWD).